we can read of things that happened 5000 years ago in the near east,where the people first learned to write.

but there are some parts of the wold where even now people can not write.the only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas-legnds handed down from one generation of stoytellers to another.these legends are useful because thay can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago,but none could write down what thay did.anthropologists wondered where the remote ancetors of the polynesian peoples now living in the pacific island came from.the sagas of these people explain that some of them came from indonesia 2000 years ago.

but the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas,if they had any,are fogotten.

so archaeologists have neitheir history nor legends to help them to find out where the first modern men came from.

fortunately however,acient men made tools with stone,especially flint,because it is easier to shape than other kinds.

they may also have used wood and skins,but these have rotted away.stone does not decay,and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the men who made them have disappeared without trace.

ROBEN PLACE  finding fossil man

polished axehead found in seamers moor in yorkshire. 2025.9.7